What's the point of Sinn Fein if they don't take their seats?

So they can go around doing terrorist stuff.

I would guess that most of us aren't old enough to remember when the Sinn Fein/IRA were actually active, but the terrorism they wrought on Britain was like Al-Qaeda x100. The kind of evil they did was unsurpassed. To put the full horror of it into terms that millenials can appreciate - the IRA once handed out a punishment beating to a dog.

So they can go around doing terrorist stuff.

I would guess that most of us aren't old enough to remember when the Sinn Fein/IRA were actually active, but the terrorism they wrought on Britain was like Al-Qaeda x100. The kind of evil they did was unsurpassed. To put the full horror of it into terms that millenials can appreciate - the IRA once handed out a punishment beating to a dog.

Do you have any understanding of Irish history? Of the role that the British played in the IRA coming to be?

Also Sinn Féin are a political voice, not a paramilitary so you cannot use IRA/Sinn Féin interchangeable.

The IRA committed terrors as did the British Army, except one side was paid for by the state...

Not so much. Sinn Fein were the political wing of the IRA. Senior SF people were also IRA commanders. Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams were both members of the IRA Army council. McGuiness certainly was a provo gunman.

Ah. Another British person with little to no understanding of Irish history, making great claims about Irish politics and history. Kind of sums up the country today tbh.

Sinn Féin winning seats doesn't mean that they are going to go around doing 'terrorist stuff'. Most people today, on both sides, want to avoid any kind of armed struggle or conflict. It is much preferable that they try to carry out their aims politically.

Understanding Irish history from 1500 onwards, especially the 1916 easter rising, civil war, border campaign of the fifties and then the troubles. Contextualise your understanding in order to consider the different positions of both nationalists and unionists. Maybe even do some wider reading on imperialism and colonialism to really understand. This will allow you to understand why Sinn Féin have always refused to take their seats in Westminster.

Clearly there is a (potential) appetite for some kind of Irish unity or something resembling it, based on the nationalist plurality in this election. Especially with them winning the North Belfast seat for the first time since its creation. Much of that is probably to do with brexit and the possibility of a hard 'border', and what that would mean for people.

So they can go around doing terrorist stuff.

I would guess that most of us aren't old enough to remember when the Sinn Fein/IRA were actually active, but the terrorism they wrought on Britain was like Al-Qaeda x100. The kind of evil they did was unsurpassed. To put the full horror of it into terms that millenials can appreciate - the IRA once handed out a punishment beating to a dog.

Please say thats a joke...

Think about it.

Never mind AQ. Take all of Islamic terrorism in the UK, including self-starters who can't really be linked to AQ or IS. There have been at most half a dozen major mass casualty attacks - 7/7, Borough, Manchester Arena, London Bridge etc. Plus maybe a dozen smaller scale attacks - Lee Rigby etc. This is over the course of 20 years.

The IRA, on the other hand is one of the longest lived active terrorist groups ever. It has been through three "waves" of terrorism. They carried out over 1000 attacks in just a 3 year period of 1971-73. I believe there was one summer in the early 70s when they carried out 200 attacks in a few weeks. 350 British soldiers will killed in that time period - that's more than in the Iraq War or the Falklands.

In terms of mass-casualty attacks, the Birmingham pub bombings, Enniskillen, Deal, Hyde Park and Regents Park - all these were on the same scale as Islamic terrorist mass casualty attacks. Add to this that they tried to assassinate the British PM at least twice, and carried out the Brighton Bombing, killing 5 and injuring 30 in an attempt to wipe out the entire British cabinet. They also murdered the Queen's cousin - Mountbatten.

In terms of who has carried out more attacks in the UK, who has killed and injured more, and who has the higher profile - it isn't even close.

The issue is you cant really call their attacks on soldiers 'terrorism' as it falls quite nicely under the rules of engagement, for the most part.
I'm not saying they're not an odious outfit, especially in relation to the murder of Lord Mountbatten, however the majority of their attacks were fundamentally different from those of AQ in that they tended to giv warnings so people could be evacuated. Their general (although not always) aim was to cause mass disruption as apposed to kill as many civilians as possible.

It does not in any way fall under any rules of engagement. They were not a sovereign power, they wore no uniform and did not represent the Republic of Ireland in any declaration of war. Their attacks on soldiers (and their families and children) were not on any defined battlefield, they almost always took the form of bombings of barracks or shootings of police officers at home or on their way to work. On the other hand, they expected the protections of both criminal justice systems *and* the Geneva Conventions.

I would take enormous issue that the IRA intended to cause disruption rather than kill. Their coded warnings were a nonsense, often late or in some cases causing more harm. Add to that that the IRA was heavily involved in organised crime - what are you left with? Terrorists.

To sit in Parliament as an MP you need to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen which Sinn Fein object to as they see the north of Ireland as occupied territory that she has no right to rule over.

Nevertheless it is completely acceptable to target an armed combatant i.e. soldiers and indeed politicians, as near enough every country i can think of demonstrates.
However i don't disagree with your points per-se merely the original one that they are somehow worse than AQ et al. which is factually wrong on every level. The IRA were indeed odious terrorists but their intents were leagues away from the abhorrent attacks by Islamist terror groups who made it a point of principle to kill as many random civilians as possible. The IRA did not, on the whole, subscribe to such tactics.